


Ambidextrous

by feverbeats



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-12
Updated: 2010-06-12
Packaged: 2017-10-10 02:19:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/94149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feverbeats/pseuds/feverbeats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All of a sudden, Voldemort is walking down the street, and when he looks down, he's wearing battered old sneakers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ambidextrous

**Author's Note:**

> Sort of a prequel to [Fighting With My Weak Hand](http://archiveofourown.org/works/94148), but makes sense without it.

  
All of a sudden, Voldemort is walking down the street, and when he looks down, he's wearing battered old sneakers. His body feels wrong, loose and young and full of hormones. He hasn't felt like this in years, and even back then, it was never like this. The rush is new, clean and not sick like it always was with him.

This has happened eight times in the past week. Legilimency is one thing; turning into Harry Potter is another.

Somewhere in the night, beyond the street lamps and scuffed shoes of Potter's life, there are dark forces gathering. Voldemort tries to find this a comfort, but his steps falter and he turns aside, his authoritative strides trailing off into a stumble as he leaves the sidewalk.

There are a few scattered Muggles walking their fuzzy dogs in the darkened park and teenage stoners smoking up near the edge of the little playground. It's all so mundane and clear, and Voldemort half wishes he couldn't feel the weight of death lying heavy behind all of it, like a bruise hidden under cloth or behind sunglasses.

He reaches up to shove messy black hair out of his eyes, eyes that he knows are green. When his hand brushes over the scar, it doesn't hurt. He flinches anyway, surprised by the lack of reaction to his own touch.

He feels oddly at home in this body, though, as if there is something slick and familiar riding inside Potter's skin. He wonders if Potter's body always feels this way, or if it's something the comes with the switch.

Ah yes, the possibility of a _switch_. More distressing than this sudden bodily and mental displacement is this: If Voldemort is here, Harry could be anywhere. Harry could be at the heart of his carefully constructed empire, picking it apart. Then again, he's just a boy, just a teenager there's no chance he could hurt Voldemort, there's no _chance_—

Lord Voldemort is afraid.

*

Harry thinks he's asleep, but it's very hard to be sure. He's had the Voldemort dreams for years, but they're taking on a new and disturbing tinge these days. Since Dumbledore's death, Harry has felt stripped bare in a way that's entirely new. He's not prepared to face life alone, but he's even less prepared for this, whatever it is.

He opens his eyes to a dark room, and he doesn't need to look down to know that his fingers will be long and thin and bone-white. The weight of his hair is missing as well and he is not wearing glasses.

The room where he's lying is closed off and small, furnished only with a stiff brown chair and a bed with one black blanket. Outside, in what Harry assumes is the hall, there are voices muttering, high and low in a sing-song back-and-forth.

Without warning, the door shudders open, catching against the floor a little where the wood has swelled in the summer humidity. Bellatrix stands in the doorway, looking unsure of herself and unwilling to speak.

Harry shivers and shuts his eyes, willing his fingers blunt and young again, willing his skin acne-prone and flushed instead of smoothly snakelike.

*

Voldemort blinks his eyes open. "Hermione?" he hears himself ask.

Bellatrix looks at him, startled. "My lord?"

"Just forget it," Voldemort _Harry_ snaps, frightened into anger. The words are jolted out of him, words that are young and resentful, words that were never his.

He will have to speak with Severus about this.


End file.
